Out of the Dark (1989, 89 minutes)
Comcast's description:
If you're into beautiful young girls who like to talk filthy, this film is for you. Especially if you like phone sex. And clown masks. And crazy, psychotic stalkers. And murder. Yep. If that's what your[sic] into, this film is definitely for you!
So I really don't think that whoever made this movie has ever actually seen phone sex operators in real life, because they definitely don't look like girls pretty/slutty/pretty slutty enough to be cast in a sexy thriller. Anyway, so this creepy cancerman calls the phone sex line using his rotary phone while listening to TimeLife's Ultimate Love Song collection on his choice of either four records or three cassettes. Joanne picks up the phone and does her phone sex things and then he cuts his nipple with a knife and ewww and then the camera pans over his collection of bondage porn and a glossy of Joanne that she sent him because yeah, that's a really great and safe idea and then he hangs up. I suspect that that's the last we'll be hearing from this perv.
Joanne is walking her dog at night alone in a desolate area near the water, once again proving what excellent personal choices she makes. That rat dog ain't gonna protect you, honey. She's calling out for her dog because she's lost him, but then a man in a clown mask hands him to her. Instead of running away from a man wearing a clown mask at night in a desolate area, she pantomimes with him. They're pretending to play baseball. How fun! But you know what's even more fun? Not being murdered at night in a desolate area by a man in a clown mask! I guess Joanne and I have different definitions of fun. Sadly, she'll never know how much fun it is not being murdered at night in a desolate area by a man in a clown mask because she is murdered at night in a desolate area by a man in a clown mask, with the baseball bat they were just pantomiming with.
The next morning, a peeping tom, who we later find out is named Dennis, is taking photos of Kristy, one of the phone sex operators, and her boyfriend Kevin Photog, a photographer. That's the entire scene.
That same morning, the cops find Joanne's body. The grizzled, veteran cop quips, "Another gritty crime strikes the City of Angels." Why does every cop in LA have an NYC accent? Is this what's going to happen with the new Law and Order in LA? The cops show up at Kevin Photog's loft - where else would a creative-type live? - while he is shooting topless headshots of Barbara Brown Hair, one of the other phone sex workers. Like my middle school, Kevin Photog owns a smoke machine; there's no word on if he also owns a laser disc player. I wonder if he turns on the smoke machine, pumps up Another Night, and does the cabbage patch. The po-po inform Kevin Photog of Joanne's murder and that his business card was in her pocket, like that episode of The West Wing that makes me cry. Toby cares. Poor Mrs. Landingham.
All the gals at the phone sex place find out about Joanne's murder and they're all upset. There are so many sluts and acid wash in this scene it's like an American Apparel ad, but with more clothing. We meet more of the phone sex girls - New Girl, Asian Girl, Black Girl, Ruth the boss (Yo, Angela!) - as well as Late Night Dave, the accountant down the hall who wears a Late Night with David Letterman sweatshirt and is an all-around creepster, kind of like David Letterman himself. New Girl is freaked out and doesn't want to walk home by herself, so she asks Barbara Brown Hair for a ride home on her scooter. Black Girl wisecracks that she'll probably be safer by herself than on Barbara Brown Hair's janky scooter.
So Barbara Brown Hair and New Girl are riding home and Clown Mask is following them in a car, but they don't notice. Barbara Brown Hair drops New Girl off at her apartment and then heads home herself. Clown Mask continues to follow her and it starts raining. She spots him because he's following her super closely, which leads me to believe our killer is not a cop or private detective or else he's a really bad, broke-ass cop or private detective. She signals to him to go around her, jerk, but he decides the best course of action is to hit her with his car, which throws her over a parked car and onto a front yard. A good Samaritan comes out from the house to check on the sound and then Clown Mask bashes him in the head with a shovel, but not just like hits him with it, like puts it through his skull sideways. I don't think that's physically possible, but whatever. Then he chokes Barbara Brown Hair with a garden hose and finishes her off with the line, "Don't call me, I'll call you." Get it? She's a phone sex operator.
The cops question Kevin Photog again, this time regarding Barbara Brown Hair's murder. Kristy says that they were together the whole night, but after the cops leave, we find out she was lying for him. Later that day, the cops find out that Kevin Photog has a prior conviction for assaulting his then underage girlfriend. The cops tell Kristy about this and she is understandably pissed. But then he tells her he loves her and they make up and who knew a phone sex place could be so romantic? And not just jizz-stained romantic, like actual romantic. But then Dennis, the peeping tom, busts in the room before they can get to the jizz-stained romance and drunkenly attacks Kevin Photog. Dennis used to be the go-to photographer for the phone sex - oh, my apologies - the phone fantasy workers and he's mad that Kevin has taken his away his business.
The brain trust known as Kristy and Kevin Photog decide to talk to the wife of the man who was murdered to see if she saw anything so they can clear Kevin Photog's name. So they talk to her and she seems pretty happy for someone whose husband was just murdered via shovel through the skull. She tells them she didn't see much, but then they find a piece of car side mirror in the grass and figure it must belong to the killer. How did the cops miss this good size chunk of mirror? And wouldn't the scene still be blocked off after like a day? Whatever, Hollyweird.
So the grizzled, veteran cop, who is a really bad actor, comes up with a plan to trap the murderer by having the calls rerouted to New Girl's - who volunteered to do this - apartment and she will try to get the murderer to come to the phone sex office where the cops will be waiting. Ruth doesn't like the sound of it, but New Girl insists on risking her life for people she only knew for a few days. After two days of rerouting the calls, the killer finally calls. He gives her some gross instructions regarding what to do to herself and then yells at her because he knows she's not actually doing them to herself. How does he know? Because he's there and he killed both cops and then he strangles her with her phone cord. Ironic! Nice job, fuck ups, which is also pretty much what Ruth says to grizzled, veteran cop when she finds out what happened.
Then there's this weird interlude where Ruth goes to see Dennis regarding Kevin Photog and Dennis being pissed at him. I think we're supposed to surmise that Dennis is Ruth's aforementioned ex-husband. Ruth says that Kevin Photog is a good photographer and has moved pass the smut, which Dennis has not. Who is Ruth to judge Dennis when she owns a phone sex business?
So the brain trust has just now figured out that the mirror they found was a part of a side mirror, even though it had some of the "Objects in mirror closer than they appear" writing on it. Conveniently, they also find the car it belongs to: Late Night Dave's. They decide to break in to Late Night Dave's office because only these MENSA members would think of doing that instead of just telling the cops. They're on like a whole other level. Only not, because Kristy accidentally flicks on Late Night Dave's office light, which he sees from the street. So they search through his office and find his stash of bondage porn in his office closet, which he kind of deserves because why wouldn't he keep that shit at home? But they hear him get off the elevator, so Kristy goes into the hallway to prevent him from going into his office. She tries to sweet talk him, but he's not having it and goes into his office, but thankfully Kevin Photog is hiding.
The brain trust decides that it is a good idea to stay at a motel for the night, so they stay at the sleaziest pay-by-the-hour motel they can find. They do love their jizz-stained romance, so this is perfect for them. And they add to the surely numerous jizz stains in their room and go at it as lace curtains add lovely shadows to their bodies. So this is where Miss Tyra got her idea for that photoshoot.
Now we're seeing the film through the eyes of the killer. And what the killer really wants is a hooker who looks like Khloe Kardashian in a Tina Turner wig. I hate that I know how to spell Kardashian without having to look it up. I would hang out with phone sex operators and hookers over a Kardashian any day. So the killer and Khloe Kardashian are in a motel room and she's fixing herself up in the bathroom mirror because guys who go to street hookers really care about how the girl looks. Unless it's Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. Pretty Woman made me really want to become a prostitute. It's so romantic! Actual romantic and jizz-stained romantic. Anyway, the killer hits her in the head with a whiskey bottle. The next day, the motel manager sees that there's water coming out from under the door, yet he doesn't see the giant puddle of blood he's standing in. So he goes in the room and finds her dead body. There's an awful lot of blood for somebody who was just hit in the head with a bottle. It looks like she was cut in half or something, just based on the amount of blood.
So you'll never guess the motel they were staying at: the same one as the brain trust. Oh no! So the cops working on the phone sex murder case show up and find out that Kevin Photog is staying at the motel. The brain trust sneaks out of the bathroom window, but Kevin Photog goes back to his loft, where the cops are waiting for him. Maybe they're not such a brain trust after all. So they arrest Kevin Photog and interogate him in the same hallway where Morrissey declared that the more you ignore him, the closer he gets. He insists on his one phone call, so he calls Kristy and tells her to break in to Late Night Dave's to find evidence that will exonerate Kevin Photog. Wow, what a great boyfriend to put his girlfriend in danger like that. So Kristy breaks in to Late Night Dave's office again and accidentally turns on the light again and Late Night Dave sees this again. What an idiot. I support her being murdered now. Kristy doesn't know that Dave saw her turn the light on, so she's still searching through his closet. At one point during the movie - I can't remember when, which is why I'm just mentioning it now - Kristy received a call from the murderer saying that he cut off Joanne's boobs and filed them under N for "no tits." So Kristy goes into Late Night Dave's filing cabinet and finds Joanne's deboobitated boobs. And now my boobs hurt. Late Night Dave finds Kristy in his office and they begin to fight. She slaps him in the face and pushes him, then he punches her in the face. She runs down the hallway and down the stairs and he chases her, telling her he's sick of "all you bitches." He catches up to her at one point, when he begins choking her, but she escapes again. She runs out of the building and across the street and then he's in the middle of the street and is hit by a car. Drunk Dennis is lurking in the area as well. The next day, the newspaper headline informs us that Late Night Dave has died.
After all the recent craziness, the brain trust decides to take a vacay out in the country. As he's starting a fire in their cabin, she goes to his car to find a blanket, but that's not what she finds. Instead, she finds a clown mask! Plot twist! Why didn't he just get rid of the mask when everyone figured that Late Night Dave was the killer? I always feel so conflicted when attractive people commit crimes. It's like, on the one hand, they're a criminal, but on the other, they're attractive, so? I don't know. So we find out that Kevin Photog used to be Bobo Clown. Kevin/Bobo/K Bo says that he loves her and he wouldn't hurt her and she says she loves him too and wants him to get help. WTF? Ok, she's out of MENSA. But K Bo was setting her up, telling her she was dumb and that he's gonna kill her for being so dumb. To be fair, he was probably gonna kill her either way. Kristy goes to get the gun she had that K Bo gave her when she thought Late Night Dave was the killer, but K Bo has it. He tries to strangle her with a belt - why didn't he just shoot her? Of course, shooting someone is just so impersonal, maybe he wanted her to truly know how much he wanted to murder her. But she manages to get the gun and goes to call the grizzled, veteran cop, but she's told that he is on vacation. Then K Bo comes after her again and she shoots him like four times. But like Michael Myers and Stefano DiMera, K Bo isn't dead. So he tries to attack Kristy again, but then grizzled, veteran cop busts in and shoots K Bo twice with a rifle. Somehow this kills him, even though the four other bullets didn't. This movie couldn't just let the chick save herself, could it? So Kristy's like, "I thought you were on vacation?" and he's like, "I am now." <Carrie Bradshaw voiceover> But I have to wonder: how did Kevin Photog explain away his sliced up nipple to Kristy in the beginning of the movie? </Carrie Bradshaw voiceover>
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